> No well known advertiser wants their brand associated with something unpopular or toxic.
That's pre-historic thinking. No reasonable long-term user of Social Media would think that a Frozen ad showing next to some BLM/white supremacist content means that Disney endorses violence/racism. It just means that you've liked Frozen (or similar things) before.
The dinosaurs will die out. They'll be replaced by social-media-savy advertisers.
That may be true at some point in the future, but I believe we're quite far away from it. Most users on the internet are not savvy at all, and I don't see that changing.
I had expected the younger generations to be "digital natives", but they're not. They know their apps and services, but it's not a generalized understanding to how things work or what's common. Imho the fact that adblocker-usage isn't approaching 100% is a powerful demonstration of it.
Additionally, there's the subconscious effects. Even if they consciously understand that it's based on their ad profile, brand will likely still not advertise there. There may be some exceptions (Benetton comes to mind), but I don't think Disney ever wants their ads to be displayed in an article about Auschwitz.
This is so weird to me. When I saw an ad for Toyota whilst watching Unsolved Mysteries in the nineties, I didn't think for a second that Toyota thought aliens were real or whatever. There has always been a complete disconnect between ads and content for me. In fact only recently has that shifted with e.g. podcasts and YouTube channels having sponsors that are explicitly worked into the content and are topical because that's a better way (or the only way for the case of podcasts) to do targeted advertising in these contexts.
I imagine TV before I was born was a little more like this since you could't just buy generic ad space - you needed to deal with the producers of a show specifically to get into their ad slots - but for TV when I was growing up, ads were ads. They'd target your age group (ads for kids toys during breakfast cartoons), but it just never occurred to me that anyone would think it was an endorsement of anything.
This is such a confusing concept to me. Do people really think like that? I know they do now, because it's a self-reinforcing concept. Yelling loudly that ads are an endorsement of content makes it true - since if you're an advertiser and you know that attitude is out there, and you still run an ad, that's now a conscious decision and everybody knows it. But it seems like this came about artificially, via activism, rather than people naturally making the link that ads imply endorsement.
Maybe it's that TV itself is mostly bland and ad friendly, non-controversial for that very reason. Content that is obviously for entertainment purposes is cool to put ads on. TV had few channels and programs that weren't for the general population, so you wouldn't have The KKK Weekly or Cool Communism that advertisers would have to avoid.
That's different on YouTube, where the content is much more heterogeneous, where you have super-optimized, ad-friendly influencers with millions of subs who take great care not to offend (and are therefore great to throw ads at) next to fringe political ideas and people with mental health issues presenting their world view.
I believe funding is often considered as an endorsement, and ads are the primary source of funding for most media companies. Similarly, you'll often see disclaimers on Twitter "retweet != endorsement" because people tend to understand it as such.
I believe that the bigger deal is subconscious association. I have no idea whether it's true, but putting McDonald's ads next to a documentary on factory farming seems unwise.
You can understand different things to different degrees, you can have a better or worse understanding of web-technology (and computers in general) than of consumer activism. I don't believe that the average consumer has a great understanding of either, but my experience is that they certainly don't understand the technology they use more than they need to.
>BLM/white supremacist content means that Disney endorses violence/racism
Are you trolling with this comparison? In a thread about de-escalation it seems a bit unwise to casually tie BLM to violence and suggest that it's somehow comparable to white supremacist extremism. I get that you were trying to choose one example from each 'end' of the political spectrum, but I think this particular choice was badly misconceived.
No. First, it’s not a comparison, just 2 examples. Second, I’m pretty sure that many on the opposing end of political spectrum (compared to you) might find it offensive in the other direction. But yea I did expect it to be badly received here on HN.
I think that white supremacists are off the end of the political spectrum, and that we shouldn't worry too much about what offends them. But the issue isn't just the comparison, it's the suggestion that BLM is inherently a violent movement (so that endorsing BLM would equate to endorsing violence). BLM is a broad movement. It's not only people on the left - and certainly not only people on the far left - who support it.
No matter how much you detest them, how can the members of the ruling party, in a country that until very recently had their views enshrined in law, be off the end of the political spectrum?
Me too, but it's a tough situation. There's a lot of 'nod nod wink wink' alt right stuff on the site, and since none of that is banned by mods, I think there ought to be a response to it too. What do you think we should do instead?
How long have you been on HN? Begin by assuming good faith, please.
> it seems a bit unwise to casually tie BLM to violence
"unwise" reads like a threat at worst and a warning at best but since I've invoked good faith I'll accept it's poor wording… but what do you actually mean? Is disagreement with your view something that should be avoided on HN? Will the mob (is this what HN readers have become?) descend on anyone for dare suggesting that BLM has been associated with violence or extremism?
Considerably longer than you, as you can easily tell by looking at my profile to see when my account was created.
>"unwise" reads like a threat
No, it doesn't. Don't be silly.
>dare suggesting that BLM has been associated with violence or extremism
Most large-scale protest movements attract violent extremists. There are always some violent idiots out there. The point is that BLM is a mainstream political movement, not a violent extremist movement. (Most polls show a majority of Americans supporting the protests.)
Yes it does, and if you’ve been here considerably longer than me then you should know the rules just as well, so try sticking to them. It is not trolling to point to the violence that follows BLM around or you wouldn’t need to produce an apologetic for it. Try the principle of charity and try not to tell others what they should think or write simply because you disagree.
My original post obviously did not contain a "threat". The rest of what you're saying similarly seems to be based on a misconceptions. I think my previous comments speak for themselves, so I'll leave it here.
reads like. I asked you to clarify but all you've done is dig yourself in, ironically on a post about providing mea culpa. If you don't wish to clarify, that's your decision, but please show some awareness in the way you write as what else should one conclude other than you really wanted someone else to shut up? The absence of any other explanation and your unwillingness to avoid clarifying or providing an apology and accepting it was a mistake is unhelpful.
I just meant that it's unwise, i.e. not a good idea, to suggest in passing that BLM is an inherently violent movement, as this kind of inaccurate and unnecessarily inflammatory statement is not likely to lead to a productive discussion. I am not sure why you think I meant anything else.
Thank you for being good enough to clarify, I appreciate it. My objection was sincere, I accept that your words were and are sincere too and not designed to elicit a malign outcome. Hopefully what follows will allow you to see why I would think they might have.
> this kind of inaccurate and unnecessarily inflammatory statement is not likely to lead to a productive discussion
I disagree that it's inaccurate, and hence is not unnecessary nor inflammatory. However, instead of being bald men fighting over a comb about whether prominent BLM members calling whites "sub-humxn"[Toronto] and calling for violence implicitly[NY1] or explicitly[NY2] is any kind of evidence of BLM itself being inherently violent (I accept it may or may not), let's focus on the general point by leaning on J. S. Mill's words from On Liberty[Mill]:
> Strange it is, that men should admit the validity of the arguments for free discussion, but object to their being "pushed to an extreme;" not seeing that unless the reasons are good for an extreme case, they are not good for any case. Strange that they should imagine that they are not assuming infallibility, when they acknowledge that there should be free discussion on all subjects which can possibly be doubtful, but think that some particular principle or doctrine should be forbidden to be questioned because it is so certain, that is, because they are certain that it is certain. To call any proposition certain, while there is any one who would deny its certainty if permitted, but who is not permitted, is to assume that we ourselves, and those who agree with us, are the judges of certainty, and judges without hearing the other side.
My favourite part of the whole book.
> I am not sure why you think I meant anything else.
Threats are often given as ostensibly well meaning advice that dissuade, or attempt to dissuade, someone from continuing on a course of action via an unspoken alternative that is personally bad. The discontinuance will happen to benefit the kindly person. Was the advice about unwise things…
- apparently well meaning?
- attempting to dissuade someone from continuing their action?
- would it benefit you?
- did you make explicit what the alternative was?
Then it may appear like a threat.
We also live in an age of increasing censorship, by government, by corporation, and by groups in society who are willing to shut down discussion by their opponents. It used to be "conservatives" burning books and railing against gangsta rap, now it's "liberals" with cancel culture and pile ons. To hear an attempt by a (possible) supporter of BLM, on an online forum, to be quiet, that is clearly in threat territory. I've experienced threats online of many kinds and they're not fun, and they often look similar to this case.
Like I wrote above, I fully accept your explanation and I hope you accept mine.
[NY2] https://youtu.be/NZEulL30vdY?t=26 …he repeats it too often, and with less of the "figurative" nature. "or we will burn this country to ashes", to a crowd is incitement to violence in my book. The speeches are full of violent rhetoric.
I did not make a threat. If you think you need to write paragraphs and paragraphs to explain why I did, you are probably just off base on this one. I am also not calling for anyone to be censored, so most of your post is irrelevant.
The length of an explanation has no connection to the complexity, validity or soundness of any point, concept or idea under discussion, anywhere, at any time, in any language, so if we're looking for irrelevancies we should start with your complaint.
I would suggest that if you don't wish for your utterances to be examined or misconstrued then you might try to avoid speech that appears threatening, and instead inject more sincerity in any defence you make, otherwise your opponent will feel justified in their scepticism of your intentions.
In short (since you appear to favour succinctness), you'd be wise to be more careful in future ;-)
I gave them the benefit of the doubt explicitly and reminded them of the rules - what more do you want?
Their reply shows I was wrong to give the benefit of the doubt and that they really need a reminder of the rules. Feel free to come up with more “no it’s you” replies if you like but they’re unhelpful, unwanted, unwarranted, and directed towards the wrong person.
I didn't even see your reply until you brought it up. More often than not for things like that I'll drop my perspective and leave. Otherwise if I took umbrage with your comment I would've actually replied which since you seemed to look through my post history you can also see I'm not one to shy away from an argument for better or worse.
But it seems like you're not interested in sticking to the rules yourself funnily enough. If you want to assume there was some grand conspiracy instead of me just reading a thread and seeing a bad remark by all means.
There are a lot of unreasonable people out there. There are also people who get a kick out of causing a scene. All it takes is one Buzzfeed (or whomever...) article about this exact situation to make other advertisers run to the hills.
>No reasonable long-term user of Social Media would think that a Frozen ad showing next to some BLM/white supremacist content means that Disney endorses violence/racism. It just means that you've liked Frozen (or similar things) before.
It's not that simple. The other angle you're missing is that advocacy groups (as a proxy for some customers) pressure advertisers to stop funding entities they don't approve of. E.g. the "Stop Funding Hate" to pressure companies to stop advertising in conservative newspapers.
Therefore, it's not enough if Disney itself doesn't approve of white supremacists. It's also not enough if Disney's customers also know that Disney doesn't approve of neo-Nazis. Instead, protesters would insist that Disney to take further measures of "not funding white supremacists" by not advertising (or allowing Google to show their ads) next to Nazi content.
Thus "brand safety" isn't just about association. It's also about how customers connect the dots between the company and the funding of activities they disapprove of.
That's pre-historic thinking. No reasonable long-term user of Social Media would think that a Frozen ad showing next to some BLM/white supremacist content means that Disney endorses violence/racism. It just means that you've liked Frozen (or similar things) before.
The dinosaurs will die out. They'll be replaced by social-media-savy advertisers.